Congratulations!

I trust that everyone has had a smooth, successful return to school.  And, I want to congratulate everyone on the hard work they did to get their BUSTOPS data ready for school startup.

I know its hard to start thinking about it already, but I wanted to mention, that should you have any redistricting projects for this year, any school openings or closings or would like to look at optimizing your routes, please call the BUSTOPS Support Staff for help.

On a personal note, both of my daughters are now in school.  For the next year they will be going to school every other day, on opposite days from each other.  So, if you hear less noise in the background from now on, that's why.

Take care!

Amusing Situation

I just had to share this with everyone.

This morning I was telling my daughters that their grandparents (my parents) left today for a 2 month (car) trip to California.  My exact words were, at approximately 7:30, were:  "Grandma and Grandpa should be across the border by now."

The girls came running into my office to "see where they are on the computer".  What they expected to see was a map with a GPS position for them and to see the picture from a webcam.  Last March some good friends of ours went on a cruise for a month.  So, during the time they were away, each morning I would bring up on the computer the webcam from the deck and the map with the GPS position of their ship.  This is what my daughters automatically thought about seeing as their grandparents are on vacation.

I had to explain that their grandparents were driving, in the Jeep and that we couldn't see them on the computer, and that they were not on a ship.  Thankfully, my father left me a paper map with the route plotted on it, which I now having hanging  up for the girls to follow.

However, when I think about this concept... we now have the ability to have GPS units on buses and see where they are in Transportation Departments.  How long will it be until we can do the same with passenger vehicles?

Have a great day!

Back to School

To those of you who started back to school last week or will this week.  I hope you have a smooth week.

To the rest of you who start back to school next week or on September 6th... please call us with any last minute questions.  I trust that by now everyone has everything printed what they need to start school.

Hope you all are able to enjoy the last official month of the summer season.

Time to wrap things up

Well, we're now only 4 weeks away from school here in Ontario (to which I say Yipee as a parent).  I know many of your School Districts also return to school the Tuesday after Labor Day, while many others will return to school in the last half of August.

It's now time to finalize your routes for the 2011-2012 school year.  Get route packages printed for drivers, get student lists printed for the schools and send out your letters to parents or postcards. 

It is always recommended that you get this information printed and distributed ASAP.  Don't wait until the last minute - you don't want to temp fate and maybe risk a printer problem or your network being down for last minute maintenance.

I hope you're all busy printing, printing, printing to get everything wrapped up for school startup.

I also hope you're all enjoying the summer weather, too!

GPS Enhancement Changes

Here are some of the updates to the GPS Enhancement in the recent Bustops program update:

• improved labels on the map to identify stops on the GPS information
• support for 24/7 video systems
• enhanced GPS Event recognition  -- users can define how the signals recorded by the GPS hardware (i.e. door activating, stop arm in use, flashing lights activated) are interpreted.  For example, that a particular signal implies that a stop is taking place.
• the changes to the route sequence display mentioned in an earlier Blog entry and the zoom to stop feature.

These changes will be of particular interest to those of you who have the GPS Enhancement.  If you don't have the GPS Enhancement but want more information on it, give Mary a call in the office.

Hope you are all having a pleasant summer.

Mid-July Thoughts

Wow, time is flying and it's already mid-July.  Most of you are doing well -- being most of the way through your route planning for the 2011-2012 school year startup.

This means that you're almost ready to start printing Letters to Parents, Bus Passes, Postcards or sending information to the newspaper.  Then, you'll be printing the new routes to give to your drivers.

Don't forget ... before you start printing the reports, you should review some of them in the Preview screen and compare the information to the information in your students and stops database.  You may need to run update commands in BUSTOPS, depending on which fields you're using in your reports.

We love helping you by answering your questions and showing you how to use BUSTOPS, but it is your responsibility to ensure the information in your BUSTOPS program is correct; and that the reports are correct.

And, as always, don't wait until the last minute to print your reports.  Imagine how upset you'll be if your printer breaks or your network is down the day before you need the report.

Hope you're all enjoying the summer weather!

For a Good Cause

Just thought I'd post a quick note about something I'm working on to give back to the community.

2011 is the 100th Anniversary of the university I attended, WLU.  They are running a promotion for alumni to do 100 hours of volunteer work in the community.

To this end, I've been working on crocheting baby blankets for the Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto.  So far I have made 4 blankets and it's taken about 70 hours.  I think if I finish 2 more, I'll have my 100 hours completed.

I'm very excited to be able to give back to this great Hospital that has helped a number of friends' and family's children.